Next time, I will not entertain even the slightest suggestion that anything I am feeling is potentially indicative of pregnancy. I’ve thought about it, and the nausea was probably on days where I took the estrace on too much of an empty stomach. The head nurse told me it would make me sick if I didn’t take it with food. The dizziness was probably a result of being on two different blood thinners. The cramps? Whatever. That’s two out of three cycles now where cramps proved to be meaningless.

Next time, I think I will change my long-held habit, and will test before the beta. I’m normally too cheap to buy pregnancy tests, and I hate seeing that single line, but if it gives me a day or two to start to come to terms with a likely negative result rather than being hit with it out of the blue on the phone, it will be money well spent. I never want to experience that again.

—

I think we’re probably going to hold off until December for the next FET. We can manage them during semester, but there’s not really any rush, because we don’t have enough time now to get a FET done AND do a full IVF cycle in December. So that means we’re not going to attempt a fresh IVF cycle until April 2014 at the earliest (yes, I am in self-protection mode and am looking ahead), and it’s more likely that we won’t attempt one (if we decide to attempt one) until July, after we come back from visiting Q.’s family. No point then in rushing right into another FET- might as well wait until the semester is over and we can both relax a bit more. It will make juggling E. on mornings I have to go in easier as well.

There are some good things to waiting. I can really concentrate on getting this full draft of my dissertation finished. I haven’t been working hard enough over the last month- I prioritized staying relaxed and did everything I could to minimize my stress. But now it’s crunch time.

I’m going to start running again. Two months is enough time to get back into a groove. I hate how I look right now, and I can’t silence the little voice inside of me that keeps commenting that the time I got pregnant was the time when I was in the best shape of my life.

December would be a September baby. That would be ok. I know I should be past this, that I should think that any baby, at any time, would be ok, but I don’t. I am too wary of how close I came to PPD with E., too aware of my own annual melancholy in the winter months, too tied in my moods to the interplay between light and dark, sunset and sunrise. I don’t think I would choose to birth a baby in the depths of winter, even if that decision means delaying an IVF cycle by another few months, means that the age gap between E. and any possible sibling grows ever larger.

Or maybe I would. I don’t know right now.

Maybe we won’t even do another IVF cycle. Maybe this next FET will be the end of our road, one way or the other.

I can’t know that yet, even though I wish I could.

What I do know is I am mourning the loss of this cycle.

A June baby.

A three year age gap.

A happy ending.

—

I took E. to the park in the afternoon after the phone call came. It wasn’t the best idea- we were there after school had let out and it seemed absolutely every mother in the park was chasing around two or more children. Several had three. I worked hard to keep my attention on E. and tried not to let my tears be too obvious.

—

I put the lasagna I was meant to be defrosting back in the freezer and ordered takeaway instead. I wanted Indian, but our local was closed due to a problem with their water main, so I went with Mediterranean mezze instead. E. and I went to pick it up after we’d been at the park. We arrived home at the same time as Q. He saw the bags. “Is it celebratory takeaway?” he asked. He didn’t know yet. He had wanted to be told in person. “No,” I told him. “It’s the other kind.” I saw his shoulders slump. I left him to pick up E. and the stroller and went inside to cry.

—

In the evening we decided to watch a film rather than do any work. We streamed Looper. We probably shouldn’t have as a couple of moments in the film hit me quite hard. Then we went upstairs and went to bed. Q. curled himself around me like an embrace. I buried my head in the pillow so my tears wouldn’t wake him up.

—

At the park in the afternoon, E. was playing with the big yellow dump truck, and he wanted to put some sand in it. The excavator was all the way over on the other side, so I asked him if he’d like me to go and get it. He said yes, so I walked over, picked it up and brought it back to him.

“Thank you, Mummy,” said E. “That was really nice.”

Thank all the gods for E.

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4 responses to “Resolutions”

I’m so sorry. It stinks having to think through all the timing in this. And wanting a spring or summer baby is not too much to ask for…it’s just that everything is always more difficult for us. Thinking of you!

I’m a fan of testing before the beta. Personally, I hate being blindsided, and would rather handle my grief/disappointment privately, before having to handle the official bfn with dignity on the phone. Lets hope you don’t have to see a bfn again, though.

Oh honey. I just wanted this to be easy for you. How nice it would have been.

I understand exactly what you mean — knowing what you’re missing this time. It’s not abstract. It’s exactly how I’ve felt with these miscarriages. The boy I lost last spring could have been just like my sweet little H.

You are exactly right though — thank goodness for our little guys, for their sweetness that breaks through the sadness. Thank goodness we are mamas.

Take your time. Feel what you feel. Try to just observe what you have coming next to try for a baby and then refocus on what’s in front of you in other parts of your life. It’s going to be okay.

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ABOUT ME

Just your average married, infertile, Canadian woman. I spent the first half of my thirties focused on two goals: motherhood and a PhD. IVF/ICSI brought us our son (E.) in 2011, but a sibling eluded us, despite our best efforts. In between pregnancy, parenting, and trying again, I wrestled the PhD into submission and defended in 2014. In the summer of 2015 I made a number of diet changes that led to the ultimate triumph over PCOS: a completely unexpected natural pregnancy. Our daughter (P.) arrived in June of 2016. A perpetual student, I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up, except write and run.